COLUMBIA BASIN SHOREBIRDING
4 AUGUST 2007

Shorebirding is heating up so we birded some of our favorite Columbia Basin
sites beginning with County Line Ponds on SR-26 at the Adams/ Grant county
line. The sun was high so lighting was not great but we still managed to
find 11 species, including our first-of-year Semipalmated and Baird's
Sandpipers and Red-necked Phalaropes.

Next we stopped at Lind Coulee and found water levels still very high. There
was one Pectoral Sandpiper and a sprinkling of other waders.

Perch Point also had high water but again we found a few waders.

The Potholes Rookery was fabulous. As we arrived, we were astonished to see
400 American White Pelicans Herons feeding cooperatively in the eastern
lagoon. There were also 150 Double-crested Cormorants and 15 Great Blue
along with 200 Great Egrets.

Now this is a spectacle! I felt like I was beside a drying pool in Africa;
missing only were Hippos and a lion pride resting in the shadows. We
searched through the egrets carefully for a Snowy Egret but only chanced
upon a few Black-crowned Night-Herons. At a viewpoint a couple miles east
overlooking another arm of the Potholes Reservoir, we counted another 80
Great Egrets. At Lind Coulee there were another 15. So, we tallied about 300
of these fine birds at just four sites in the Columbia Basin. We wonder what
the total count for eastern Washington is this season?

Shorebird list (CLP-County Line Ponds, LC-Lind Coulee, PP-Perch Point,
PR-Potholes Rookery:

Killdeer - CLP, LC, PP, PR
Black-necked Stilt - CLP, PR
American Avocet - CLP
Greater Yellowlegs - CLP, LC, PP, PR
Lesser Yellowlegs - PR
Spotted Sandpiper - CLP, LC, PP, PR
Semipalmated Sandpiper - CLP, LC
Western Sandpiper - CLP, LC, PP, PR
Least Sandpiper - CLP, LC
Baird's Sandpiper - CLP, PP
Pectoral Sandpiper - LC
Long-billed Dowitcher - CLP, LC, PR
Wilson's Snipe - LC
Red-necked Phalarope - CLP, LC

Andy and Ellen Stepniewski
Wapato WA
steppie at nwinfo.net